The deadlocked jury at The Sun corruption trial in Kingston will resume deliberations for the ninth day tomorrow after the late discharge of a highly-stressed juror.

A juror who has heard every day of the case for four months passed the judge a note this afternoon stating he was feeling ill and wished to be removed from the divided deliberations. The juror was then discharged by Judge Richard Marks QC and left the court on his own.

Mr Justice Marks called the remaining 11 jurors – who have been deadlocked on nine counts for a fortnight – back into court and told them that the juror had been discharged because he was "under a good deal of pressure and stress".

Having been previously appraised of the voting intentions of the jury, the judge then asked the remaining 11 jurors whether there was a realistic prospect they would ever reach a verdict.

After considering the question briefly in their jury room, at 4.33pm the jury returned to court and the foreman said "We've decided that we would like to come back tomorrow given the changed dynamic with one of our number being discharged. We believe the deliberations won't take a long time but we just want to check we are all comfortable on where we are." They will continue their deliberations at 9.45am tomorrow.

The juror's illness came at the end of a dramatic day in Court 9 at Kingston Crown Court, with the four remaining defendants – Chris Pharo, Ben O'Driscoll, Graham Dudman and Jamie Pyatt – repeatedly called back into court to hear the latest developments.

The jury had cleared The Sun's picture editor John Edwards and the paper's former East Anglia reporter John Troup of all charges on Friday, and The Sun's development director Graham Dudman and its former deputy news editor Ben O'Driscoll of one count each.

However, the foreman told the judge in a note that they could not reach verdicts on the other counts and gave their voting figures on each count. These have not been disclosed.

After a two day absence on Monday and Tuesday this week caused by the illness of a different juror, the judge told the deadlocked jurors at 10am today that he could accept majority verdicts.

However shortly before 3pm the jury foreman again said he and his peers could not agree whether any of the remaining four defendants were guilty or not guilty.

All deny conspiring to commit misconduct in public office over payments to police and other public officials.